A bite at a time, Mandvi earning foodie cred

Comedian stars in TV special on Cooking Channel

In a TV special that airs this month on the Cooking Channel, comedian and actor Aasif Mandvi tours New York with Indian food guru Madhur Jaffery.

Peter Kramer/Associated Press

Hes played a charming chef in a feature film that he also co-wrote and had his breakthrough role in an off-Broadway play about a restaurant. Yet actor-comedian Aasif Mandvi still can barely tell dosas from Devil Dogs.

I enjoy eating Indian food, but Im not an aficionado, says Mandvi, best known as Senior Correspondent for South Asia (or the Middle East, or anywhere else Muslims may live) on Comedy Centrals The Daily Show. He admits to cooking only when it strategically suits him.

I usually cook when Im in a relationship, he says. Yes, he can turn out a basic curry, but ultimately, I just go to my mom and say This is what I did. It doesnt taste right. What did I do wrong?

But his lack of skill hasnt stopped him from tackling food topics. Through mid-June, Mandvi, 46, is cruising the South Asian restaurants of New York with Madhur Jaffrey, the grande dame of the cuisine, sampling tandoori chicken and sticky sweet jalebis from Midtown to the boroughs in a special on the Cooking Channel.

Its as he says: He is not a foodie, he doesnt cook, he doesnt know too much about Indian food, Jaffrey said in a telephone interview. And that is why hes the perfect person to be on the show. He asks the questions that anyone might want to know, and I give the answers.

But just because he works a takeout menu as easily as an audience doesnt mean he lacks an appreciation for great food.

For Mandvi, food  and especially the food of South Asia  can be a metaphor for personal transformation. In his 2009 movie Todays Special, he cast himself as an Indian-American chef who only connects to his roots and culture when he takes over his parents restaurant.

Food represents so many things, he says, family, love, in some movies it even represents desire, passion, sexuality.

The movie was based on Mandvis 1999 award-winning one-man show, Sakinas Restaurant, which he wrote and starred in. He chose the restaurant setting, he says, because he was looking for an Indian venue that all Americans would connect with.

The film is as much about a restaurant as Its a Wonderful Life is about a savings and loan, he says. It was just a place.

Mandvi says it was Todays Special that inspired the Cooking Channel program  and jokes that the special will probably inspire a Broadway musical which will then inspire another film.

Or perhaps his own cooking show? He laughs.

Lets see, I dont know, he says. But if he did? I would call it Friends. Then people would just tune in.

A bite at a time, Mandvi earning foodie cred

SPF

In a TV special that airs this month on the Cooking Channel, comedian and actor Aasif Mandvi tours New York with Indian food guru Madhur Jaffery.